New reflections on food security and land use strategies based on the evolution of Chinese dietary patterns

Food is the fundamental guarantee for the sustainable development of human society. Countries around the world put food security on their high-priority political agenda. As the largest developing country in the world, China uses only 9% of the world’s land, contributing to 25% of the world’s food and feeding one-fifth of the population. However, with the transformation and upgrading of the dietary structure, food security in China is latent with a structural crisis. This study explored the demand for cultivated land resources under the evolution of Chinese dietary patterns, examined the transition of agricultural planting structure in China, and put forward land use strategies to ensure food security. Results show that from 1987 to 2020, the Chinese gradually shifted to land-intensive food consumption. Specifically, plant-based food, such as cereals and vegetables, gradually decreased, whereas animal-based food (land-intensive), such as meat, eggs, and milk, continued to increase. The cultivated land requirements for food (LRF) progressively approached the upper limit of domestic cultivated land resources. Unfortunately, the LRF for meat consumption was equal to that for cereals consumption, and meat consumption alone contributed 70.6% to the increase in the total LRF. More importantly, the coexistence of supply shortage and excess in China’s agricultural planting structure exhibited an imbalance. Grain was trapped in a vicious cycle of more production, more import, and more inventory, but the planting area for soybean and succulence was only one-fourth of the feed grain required for animal-based food such as meat, eggs, and milk. Furthermore, this study predicted that China would be difficult to feed its population by 2050 if it relied on domestic cultivated land alone, including implementing the Chinese Food Guide Pagoda (2022). Therefore, the work suggests that it is necessary to promote the transformation of food production in China from a single supply pattern from cultivated land resources to a multi-supply pattern that relies on different types of land resources (e.g., woodlands, grasslands, and lakes). Meanwhile, it is essential to adjust the current dietary guidelines and encourages residents to adopt resource-saving diet patterns.